42 in French
quarante-deux
Updated June 2026
A regular forty-two, and Douglas Adams's answer to everything
“Forty-two in French” is quarante-deux, the number 42. Hear it spoken below.
NUMERAL
42
FRENCH
quarante-deux
IPA
/ka.ʁɑ̃t.dø/
Breakdown
Real sentence examples
“Elle a quarante-deux ans.”
“Le bus quarante-deux s'arrête devant la gare.”
“La réponse à la grande question est quarante-deux.”
Pronunciation and morphology notes
Quarante-deux is quarante (40) plus deux (2), hyphenated with no "et" connector. The "et" appears only on the unit 1, so 41 is quarante et un, but 42 through 49 are all hyphenated: quarante-deux, quarante-trois, and so on. The word is identical in France, Belgium and Switzerland, because the septante / huitante / nonante split only touches 70, 80 and 90. Forty-two enjoys a cult following thanks to Douglas Adams: in the French edition, Le Guide du voyageur galactique, the answer the supercomputer Pensées Profondes gives to "la grande question sur la vie, l'univers et le reste" (the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything) is quarante-deux.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say forty-two (42) in French?
Forty-two in French is "quarante-deux" (the number 42). It is built as 40 + 2 = 42.
How is quarante-deux (42) pronounced in French?
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, "quarante-deux" is transcribed /ka.ʁɑ̃t.dø/. Use the audio button on this page to hear the standard French pronunciation.
How is 42 used in a French sentence?
A natural example is: "Elle a quarante-deux ans."
Related numbers
Want to convert another number, or hear it spoken in Belgium / Swiss French?